


and it sighs in my sleep

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, How Do I Tag This, Orphan Black spoilers, Sarah pretty much losing it, Sestras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 09:51:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena’s sitting on the counter, swinging her feet. “Pour more sugar in it,” she says decisively.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and it sighs in my sleep

**Author's Note:**

> From a Tumblr prompt: "Helena is dead and Sarah develops a split personality due to the guilt of killing someone (this may actually be too painful to read but it would be worth it)"
> 
> OH BOY DID SOMEONE ASK FOR SOMETHING TRAGIC WITH SESTRAS I AM ALL OVER THAT

Helena’s sitting on the counter, swinging her feet. “Pour more sugar in it,” she says decisively. Her eyes are like two glass marbles, rolling. Rolling rolling rolling in her scalp, and you still remember the way they shined through the black bag, the raw-meat _stink_ of her breath as she breathed _do you want to be saved_.

At the time, you’d said yes.

(You never gave her that choice. You wonder what she would have said, and if this is any kind of salvation at all.)

“I’m not going to put any sugar in it,” you reply. Your voice rasps in your throat. How long has it been since you’ve had anything to drink? You don’t remember. Your hand shakes on glasses and doorknobs the way it didn’t shake when you held the gun. When. When you held. The gun.

“It’s _soup_ ,” you continue, voice firm. If you talk loudly enough you can forget the sharp round sound of the gun and the way it pulled in your hand. Your hand around. Your hand.

“So?” your sister replies lackadaisically. Her boots are thumping against the counter she sits on, _thump_ -thump _-thump_ -thump (like the pulse of blood in her neck on the ground as she stared at the ceiling and you _know_ you killed her, you killed her you killed her you killed her—). She interrupts the thumping to smile at you, big and bright. Your smile. In her face it looks like a puzzle piece jammed in by impatient fingers.

 _So?_ You don’t really know. The other day you woke up in the kitchen surrounded by white powder, sugar settling on the counter like snow. You don’t remember how you got there. You are remembering less and less these days (and Paul’s voice creaks in the back of your head _I’m worried you’re losing the plot again_ and was he talking to you or Beth? Are you yourself or Beth? You or Beth or Helena or Alison or Cosima or Rachel, like bullets in a gun, in a gun when you held the gun when your face was at the other end of a gun). You don’t remember how you got to the kitchen. You don’t know how Helena got there either.

The soup is boiling over. You turn down the dial mechanically. There is something rust-colored under your fingernails. 

Helena’s boots clop on the kitchen tile. You feel her arms wrapping around your waist (you are all I have now) (I love you).

“ _Sestra_ ,” she coos in your ear. (Her breath doesn’t smell like anything.) “Don’t worry. We will take care of each other. That is what sisters do. Yes?”

(“Yes?” she asks. _No_. She’s gone too fucking far. She killed your mother, both of your mother. She’s dangerous. You need to stop her. No matter what.

“I’ve already got a family,” you croak, and pull the trigger.)

“You’re _dead_ ,” you whisper, your eyes wide and white and unblinking.

Her arms stiffen around you and you think, wildly, _she knows she has known the whole time_ —

You wake up in your bed. Your fingernails are clean. She is sitting on the edge of your bed, watching.

“You were dead,” you tell her. “In my dream.”

She smiles and smiles and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep  
> Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks  
> Then it walks, then it walks with my legs  
> To fall, to fall, to fall at your feet  
> \-- "I'm Not Calling You A Liar," Florence + the Machine


End file.
